ESTIMATION OF CLIENT-ASSESSED HEARING-AID PERFORMANCE-BASED UPON UNAIDED VARIABLES

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of estima ting client-assessed hearing aid performance before hearing aids are p urchased, Aided performance was represented by the Profile of Hearing Aid Performance (PHAP, Cox & Gilmore, 1990). Multiple regression was a pplied to 16 unaided predictor variables and to 8 response variables. The response variables were the scores from the seven PHAP subscales p lus the overall PHAP score, which were obtained from 46 participants. Audiologic, demographic, and psychological information was included am ong the 16 predictor variables. The average widths of 95% prediction i ntervals showed that, with the exception of the Aversiveness of Sounds and Ease of Communication subscales, PHAP subscale scores were predic ted within 15% on average. Eighty percent or more of the individual pa rticipants' PHAP scores were predicted within 15% for all but the Aver siveness of Sounds subscale. The predictor variables appearing in regr ession equations for the greatest number of PHAP subscales include age , Communication Strategies and Personal Adjustment scores from the Com munication Profile for the Hearing Impaired (Demorest & Erdman, 1986), Revised Speech Perception in Noise (Bilger, Neutzel, Rabinowitz, & Rz eczkowski, 1984; Kalikow, Stevens, & Elliott, 1977) test scores, comfo rtable loudness levels, and the difference between National Acoustic L aboratories' target gain (Byrne & Dillon, 1986) and actual insertion g ain. Further testing of the models on additional participants would be needed to determine their clinical applicability. In addition to bein g potentially useful for predicting client-assessed aided performance, the equations obtained in this study identify relationships between t he aided and unaided Variables that can be applied in the counseling o f new hearing aid users.